Chapter 11 #2
He grins gratefully, knocking the cap off his beer with his palm on the edge of the wood crate.
The motion brings a heady wave of nostalgia, watching Matt do that on a fence post at Silverstone.
We’d snuck in for MotoGP and F1, the first time hiding in the bed of his dad’s truck.
Then later, the two of us took a wire cutter to the chain links and slid in free, drinking our own beers in the stands as though we were paying customers.
We did it each year until Matt got invited by Rossini as a guest. I couldn’t get the clips off the fence posts by myself, so I sat in a tree, alone, able to make out about ten meters of track.
“Still don’t have a bottle opener, huh?”
“I’m just having the one,” he says, mistaking my nostalgia for concern, nodding at one of the six-packs.
“Race day is five days away,” I say, awkwardly smiling at him before I tear the rack of ribs in two. I look back up at him and grin. “You can have one and a half,” I say mock sternly.
“You got it, boss.” He shoots me a cheeky smile and hands me an open can.
I stare out across the brightly lit garage, then turn to him. “Actually, shall we take this outside?”
“Good plan, Bug,” he says, lifting his food as we wander out into the mellow light of the pit lane and settle on two closed crates.
It’s quiet. There is some activity in the McLaren garage a few doors down, but otherwise it’s empty out there.
The heat has been cooking the track all day, and there’s that familiar thick smell of baked tarmac, mixing with the sweet smell of barbecue sauce.
“Now I feel like I’m in Texas,” I say.
“That heat. That smell,” he says, nodding.
“And the pork,” I reply. “This is exceptionally good shit.”
“I go there every year,” he says, chugging his beer.
“Yeah?”
The small talk. The pleasant chitchat. We can do this.
Matt lifts his beer and hesitates, before he says, “Stavros found it.” The comment sits out there in the night air, as I wait quietly for him to elaborate, but he doesn’t. He drinks. He sits quietly.
“He was a bit of a foodie, wasn’t he? Didn’t he have a restaurant in his hometown in Greece?” I remark, trying to keep him talking. He nods, looking like he’s deep in thought.
“Did you ever go there?”
“In Kefalonia? Of course I did. I was at the launch. Wouldn’t have missed it for the world. We practically lived there during the offseason.” His smile at the memory fades as soon as it appears.
“You miss him.”
Matt blows out a long breath. “Yup,” he says softly.
“That’s why you don’t let Noah in.”
“I’m trying with him.”
“I know. I can see that,” I say, frowning at him. “But it’s all banter. You keep him at arm’s length. Haven’t you ever wanted to guide a younger driver?”
“Not really,” he says, but I can see his eyelids flicker as he swallows. He’s so lying.
Matt reaches for the coleslaw, fishing around in the bag for a plastic fork. “It’s not Noah’s fault. I worry about getting close to another driver, you know? Stavros practically haunts me on the track,” he says.
“He does?” I ask, turning my head to him. “The flashes?”
“Yep. My best friend. In a blazing fire I caused. Doesn’t get more nightmarish than that.”
I try to suck in my breath inconspicuously, covering my mouth with my beer, but Matt catches me.
I want to ask him if it’s true he hasn’t been to visit Stavros. But it simply couldn’t be, could it? That he could abandon his best friend like that? I get that I was delusional about how much our friendship meant, but Stavros and Matt’s bond seemed legendary.
“It’s okay, Chloe,” he says, reaching up to scratch the back of his head. “I’m ah . . . I’m already speaking with a therapist. We’re working on it.”
“You are?”
“I am.”
I shake my head in disbelief. “I’m so glad to hear that. Why didn’t you mention this sooner?”
“I know, I should have told you already. I wasn’t planning on telling anyone, except my brother, of course.” He turns to face me, eyes narrowing. “You know, I forgot how easy you are to talk to. I missed this.”
I mentally feed the half-baked compliment into a shredder, a new trick I’ve employed to survive the torrent of sweet things Matt has said lately. I look out to the pit lane. He’s just being nice. It doesn’t mean what you think it does, Chloe.
“You didn’t miss this?” he prods when I don’t reply. “It’s a shame we lost contact.”
The lack of self-awareness is truly stunning. Stunning enough to make me spit out my beer, laughing. “Oh, okay, Matt.”
“What?” he shoots me a confused look. “I’m serious. I was lying in bed the other night, and I remembered your pet rabbit Senna. What happened to Senna?”
“He’s dead,” I say, though I can’t hide my surprise that he remembered. “It’s been, like, ten years, and rabbits only live to about nine.”
“I’m sorry,” he says as he pours out a little of his beer. “Rest in peace, little Senna. It’s shame I wasn’t there for the funeral.”
I laugh at the absurdity of it. “Yeah. You were really missed at my pet rabbit’s funeral,” I say, playing along.
“If I’d known I would have rolled up in my black suit and sunglasses to pay my respects.”
I roll my eyes. “You met him, like, once. And he was a bunny.”
“So?” he asks, grinning. “You talked about him so much, I kept forgetting he was a rabbit.”
I cannot help but laugh. “Wait. Did you think I had an invisible friend, Matt?”
“You were the type,” he says.
“I was the type?” I say in mock outrage.
Matt’s face scrunches up and he laughs so hard, no sound comes out until he gasps for air. He reaches for a napkin to cover his face, and his laughter is so infectious that I find myself joining in. “I’m kidding, I’m kidding,” he splutters.
“Fuck you,” I say. “At least I had friends.”
He tips his head now, his laughter subsiding. “Well, we both struggled a bit on that front. It was slim pickings in Juniors. Such rich wankers. Like that Jack Sheppard.”
He tosses his napkin to the ground as he says Jack’s name. For someone as rich as Matt is now, he acts weirdly jealous of the guy.
“You know what was fun?” I say. “Those times we snuck in to watch the racing at Silverstone.”
“Oh yeah. And remember when we snuck in offseason?” he says, laughing, and my face breaks into a huge smile as the memory floods back in.
“Of course I do. You stole the Bambino karts,” I recall, laughing. “And we raced them for hours. You couldn’t fit your feet inside the car.”
“That’s the only reason you won,” he says, shaking his head as the laughter subsides. “Fucking hell, those days were a laugh.”
“The best,” I say, standing, reaching out a hand to pull him up. He glances at my fingers for a moment before taking my hand.
“Share an Uber?” I suggest.
“Guess we better,” he replies, crushing his second beer as I quickly order the car. “I enjoyed that, Chloe. Really. It’s so nice to be working with you. Even if everything else about this sucks.”
“Obviously,” I say, rolling my eyes.
“It’s true,” he replies, and I can feel his eyes on me as I pack away the food mess. “I’m glad to have you back in my life. I’m lucky, actually. Really lucky.”
I glance back up him, his skin shimmering in the golden glow of the last of the daylight, his eyes sincere, and I have to summon all my strength just to nod in reply.
He was always so handsome, but these were the moments that sealed my fate all those years ago.
These quiet, private moments, with a Matt only I knew.
Sensitive. Thoughtful. Surprisingly funny.
“Just like old times,” I say, bittersweet nostalgia sweeping through me as I stand to face him. I can’t seem to look away from his gaze, which only intensifies as our eyes meet.
“We should do this again,” he says quickly. Seriously.
“I’d love that,” I reply, despite myself, and Matt’s face softens into a warm smile. Then his eyes narrow a little on me, like he has more to say.
But un unmistakable buzz comes from the phone in my hand. “Five minutes,” I say, looking at the screen. “We better go.”
Matt gathers all the food mess and tosses it into a black garbage bag by the track exit. We touch our passes to the gate, wander outside, and wait for our Uber in a heavy silence. The crickets are deafening, the sun setting in the distance, and it will be dark before we are back at the hotel.
Matt is quiet. He’s not standing too close, but I can feel his presence radiating like a warm fire.
I’ve always been able to feel him. In the car back, we barely speak, staring out our respective windows, the gap between us as wide as I can make it.
Is this companionable silence, or is there something else going on?
I can see, out of the corner of my eye, Matt turn toward me a few times as though he wants to say something. But then his body shifts, and he looks back out the window. When we’re just five minutes from the hotel he seems to spring to life.
“Let’s walk the last few blocks,” he says suddenly.
“Without security?” I scan the sidewalk; it’s a busy street. No way Matt won’t get recognized.
“It’s only a few blocks,” he insists.
“It’s not a good idea. You’ll get swamped.”
“Not in Texas. Come on, I need to walk off these ribs.”
It doesn’t feel like that’s why we’re stopping, but still, I follow his lead and climb out of the car. We move through the foot traffic, both with our eyes on the ground. I sneak glances at him while scanning the people around us. I get the feeling he’s trying to delay saying something.
And then, on this warm Austin night, the skies open above us and it starts to downpour.
“Oh god!” I say, ducking for the awning of a nearby antique shop as the streets clear, with people clamoring into cars and under other dark and dry awnings down the street.
We stand in silence for a moment, watching the rain pour, clawing our damp hair out of our faces.
My shirt is soaked and clinging to my skin.
“Bit of a dumb idea to walk,” Matt admits. “My trainers are soaked.”